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Hi! I'm Marlyssa. I'm a sunshine loving Southern California girl, wife to my best friend Jason, a new mommy to my sweet boy Aiden, currently living in the country of Northern Minnesota. I dance in grocery stores, have a hard time making decisions, and find joy in the simple everyday things of life. I find myself laughing at myself often--we all take life too seriously sometimes. Here you will find a story of life, learning, love, growth, faith and family. This is the story of the Lord taking me on the adventure of a lifetime.

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my totally DIY first father's day gift for Jason

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Soon after we moved into our home, we did some exploring in our backyard. There was a large pile of tree and grass trimmings that had some treasures hidden inside. One of which was a well-weathered wooden tray that was somehow part of a shipping crate for food. I remember the crinkled brow Jason gave me as he saw me pull it from the pile that was probably meant to be burned. But like what any DIY-er I said, "What? I'll find a use for it someday!”

Over a year and a half later, I pulled the tray out of the garage while Jason was away at work. I cleaned and sanded it off, but not so much that it would lose its weathered appearance. Then I ordered some mini clothespins from Target…and Aiden and I got to taking pictures. (: I dressed him in a sleeveless onesie (to show off his cute chubby arms and legs!) and pulled out some of Jason's things. Then I got out my letters. Back when I lived at home, I had five metal letters in my room that spelled out "dream". The "a" currently hangs as part of Aiden's monogram above his changing table. I found the other metal letters in our storage room (so I could spell out “dad") and our photo shoot started!

Jason is a log hauler/truck driver/business owner...but I didn't have a toy semi truck on hand so I used a road grader in one of the pictures instead. He knows how to run all kinds of other heavy equipment so...close enough! haha. I took another picture of Aiden in one of Jason's hats, one that I got him for our first Christmas as a married couple that he tells me is his favorite. (: And in another picture I had Jason's hockey stick and a puck as props. That one was more difficult to photograph than it would seem. I had to keep Aiden propped up sitting (which is hard when he can't sit on his own!) and then I had to position the hockey stick so it wouldn’t fall and hit him and so it wouldn't make our comforter dirty...which it kind of did haha. Then I took some pictures of just Aiden and the letters (: Then I found some free Polaroid "border" images online and edited the pictures of Aiden so they would be inside the Polaroid border. I printed them out at home, hot glued the clothespins to the tray and then hung the pictures by the clothes pins. The last thing I did was I hammered some picture frame teeth to the back of the tray and ta-da! Now it can be hung up on the wall! (:

I hand made the card and had the picture above printed inside. To this day it's my favorite picture of Jason and Aiden...he wasn't even a month old at the time and it was over a weekend when I became very sick with mastitis and had a fever of over 103. And while I had to mostly "check out" of motherhood for a day or two so I could rest and break the fever, Jason took care of both Aiden and I that weekend. (Remember Aiden was a newborn at the time, who woke every 2 hours and all through the night!) I remember laying in bed there feeling so thankful. So tired, probably delirious, but oh so thankful. He’s such a hard working husband for me and such a fun dad for our little Aiden. You should see the way his face lights up when they play together... (:

Inside the card along with a message for Jason I wrote the lyrics to a song I had found online:

Daddy, can you leave the hall light on?

I can't fall asleep when I'm all alone.

'Cause if I close my eyes, I may have a bad dream.

If I cry in the night who will come for me?

Daddy's arms will rescue me.

Daddy, I don't think I can learn to swim.

I fear I'm gonna sink if I jump right in.

I don't have a vest or my floaties on.

But I see you in the deep with your open arms.

Daddy's arms will rescue me.

Yes, I wanna know how the big boys feel,

But I only wanna ride with my training wheels.

'Cause if I fall down I will scrape my knee.

Maybe if you run right along with me.

Daddy's arms will rescue me.

(lyrics: Karl Kolhase, Daddy's Arms)

I won't say how many times I cried during all of this haha.

I am so happy with how my DIY-ed Father's Day gift turned out! And the look on Jason's face was totally priceless when I brought it out on Father's Day morning and told him we had been working on it all week (: He had no idea! (: